


On Such a Full Sea

by shinealightrose



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Elements of Power Play, M/M, Pirates, Ransom on the High Seas, Slight Violence, very explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 07:13:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4512771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightrose/pseuds/shinealightrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Royal navy ship captains don't often end up captive on a pirate vessel, but now that Junmyeon is here, he's determined to remain alive long enough for a ransom exchange. That is, if Pirate Captain Oh Sehun wills it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Such a Full Sea

**Author's Note:**

> "Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures”. - William Shakespeare

“Storm's brewing, captain.”  
  
“I see it, Tao.”  
  
Junmyeon needn't be eloquent with his words. It was evident to everyone on board that a storm was coming, and even if it wasn't obvious, Junmyeon would still be able to sense it, smell it in the air. Eighteen years he had passed on the ocean since he was a raw lad of fourteen. He knew the sea, knew the currents, knew the waves and the wind and the clouds. He knew his ship like some men knew women, and he flattered himself that he understood his vessel better than they. As one of the youngest captains in the royal navy, thirty-two years old last winter, he knew when a storm was brewing. And he knew it wouldn't be good.  
  
“Tell the men to strap everything down and prepare for the worst. We'll try to head for land but if we miss the cove, this won't be pretty. Have the men get ready to take down the sails if need be.”  
  
The deckhand looked down at him with scared, uncertain eyes. “Are... are you speaking to me?” he asked in a nearly hushed whisper.  
  
Junmyeon sighed, and then smiled at him fondly. “Yes, Tao. But perhaps you can fetch the first mate so he can relay my orders?”  
  
“Aye, captain.”  
  
Junmyeon continued smiling, cheeks taut with the effort while the boy walked away. It was, he hoped, his way of conveying confidence. Tao was the youngest of his crew and occasionally needed to be instilled with a lot of confidence. The eighteen-year-old deckhand probably wasn't  _the_  most suited for life on the high seas, but everyone made what they could of life. Tao would get used to it, just as Junmyeon had.  
  
A short half an hour later, the crew was as prepared as they could be. His first mate saw to that while Junmyeon steered a course for the cove he knew to be close, praying they would make it in time. The winds were already beginning to pick up, water fell from the sky and the sea rocked all around them. The shouts from his men were growing louder in order that they might hear one another. Already the ship's crew conveyed a sense of carefully controlled panic with every moment that passed, the rain coming down harder still, and still no sight of the familiar land formation.  
  
Junmyeon kept his face hard to maintain the pretense that all wouldn't be lost if they hit the underwater reef wrong. His arms strained at the wheel, mind firmly set, preferring to fret more about their soon-to-be upset sailing schedule than the image of his ship torn to pieces. If they lost a day or two due to the storm, they wouldn't make port on time, pay day wouldn't come on time, and his men would be cranky from wanting to visit their wives and families. Better if he imagined that than all of them dead.  
  
More importantly than pay day though, the ship wouldn't make the rendezvous with the rest of the small fleet whose season it was to protect merchant vessels from the plague of pirates that were recently swarming them. Junmyeon supposed the fleet would go on, whether the captain and his crew were in it or not. Pirates waited on no man's schedule, and an entire fleet could not afford to sit around. Luxurious goods and time-sensitive food stocks could not wait to sit around and not sail on time. Junmyeon would miss the excursion and lose the glory.  
  
If they survived the storm.  
  
A crackle of lightning blazed across the sky, illuminating the mid-day darkness. Thunder crashed right after as the crew scurried to tie the sails, and still Junmyeon steered for what he hoped was their saving destination. The crashing of the ocean waves might actually help them if they got it just right, but nothing was a guarantee out here. The ship lilted side to side, men shouted, and Junmyeon caught sight of more than one of his crew giving up to hold on dearly to anything that might float. Tao was one of them, the youth clutching a rail not far from the captain. Junmyeon hoped it would be enough. Especially when he heard the tell-tale crash of an underwater barrier and the entire ship heaved in the water, lighting all overhead. There was a sickening crunch of wood tearing to bits on the rocks, and an incredible swarm of howls from the men as they cried out in fear.  
  
“Captain!” he heard the deckhand calling to him through the noise of the storm. “Captain!”  
  
Junmyeon couldn't spare him a glance. Not when the whole of his ship hung in the balance of a quickly worsening battle.  
  
“Captain! Jump with me!”  
  
“Tao, no! Go yourself!”  
  
“Captain the ship's lost!”  
  
“It's not lost yet!” Junmyeon deluded himself. Not when there was the slightest chance he could steer her closer to the shore, the better to save as many men as possible. Another roar of thunder struck on time with a lighting streak across the sky, and the wind gusted phenomenally with as much strength if not more than the waves.  
  
Then the mast began to crack, splinter and fall.  
  
The rest of the shipwreck became little more than a blur to the shell-shocked captain. Losing track of all other sensations and sound, feeling only the cataclysm before him. Somebody, the deckhand, pulling him out of the way of the second falling mast. The crash of the waves that came up to meet him as he was tossed overboard, or pushed.  
  
Somewhere in there his survival instinct kicked in, forcing him to swim to stay afloat, to find something to hold onto. A piece of debris knocked horribly into his head, and he swallowed too much water, but in the final moments before he blacked out, Junmyeon had the distinct feeling of someone holding onto him...  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 _“I'm pretty sure this is their captain, sir.”_    
  
Far above his head, floating nearly in the clouds, Junmyeon heard a voice.  
  
 _“Is it, now? Bring him on board,”_  said a second voice.  
  
 _“Aye, captain. And how about the other boy?”  
  
“What about him? Worthless, probably, for a ransom. Get rid of him.”  
  
“Will do... although it seems such a waste...”_  
  
There was silence for a moment.  
  
Then,  _“Is that... pity? Or sympathy, Minseok?”  
  
“Not at all, captain. It's just that... this marking on his arm... do you see it? The tattoo?”_  
  
There was a sigh.  _“I don't... wait. Oh. Oh, I see. How interesting. Fine then, let him stay.”_    
  
  
  
  
  
  
When Junmyeon opened his eyes again it was to a clearer day, calm weather, light winds against the sails, and a blinding white sun. Also, a splitting headache and general inability to move because he hurt all over. He groaned, squinted his eyes and lifted a hand to his head. Even that much was painful. He felt battered all over, every muscle was sore, and there was a heavy bandage across his forehead. His hand came away moist and slightly reddish.  _Blood._  He was bleeding from the head.  
  
Junmyeon jerked awake, sitting up faster than he should have and practically doubled over again from the pain. He fell onto his side and thrashed, and that’s when he realized that one leg wouldn’t move. A heavy metal shackle wrapped around his ankle, connected by a short chain to a hard piece of metal drilled into the side of a ship. Junmyeon panicked again. He was on a ship.  
  
“Captain?” came a soft voice from nearby.  
  
Moaning painfully Junmyeon turned his head around to find the source, shocked to see his deckhand in a similar fixture. Tao looked about as bad as Junmyeon felt, gashes and bruises all over his skin, although he was at least lacking the head bandage.  
  
“Captain, you’re awake,” said the boy with great relief. He almost formed a smile, but his lip was split and it pained him.  
  
“Tao? What’s happened? Where are we? What ship is this?”  
  
It took a moment for Tao to formulate the words. “Pirates,” he whispered. “Pirates rescued us.”  
  
If Tao thought this could be described as a rescue, then Junmyeon had a few things yet to teach the boy. “Where are the others then? Our crew?” he asked, face hard as he tried not to choke too loudly. There were no others around on this part of the deck, but his throat was severely dry. Surely they’d arouse whatever pirates were on board if and when they were heard.  
  
“There aren’t any others,” Tao admitted softly. “Just us.”  
  
Junmyeon couldn’t hold it in any longer. His throat burned and he coughed loudly, so hard and long that he could barely catch his breath and the dry coughs continued on while he rolled on his side. Sure enough, it drew someone’s attention.  
  
“He’s awake!” someone yelled from close by. “Get Yixing! Call the captain!”  
  
Then hands reached around Junmyeon’s limp, writhing form and pulled him up. They maneuvered him until he was sitting against the rail, his knees up and Junmyeon had the first glimpse of a pirate, short in stature with large, bored eyes. The man lifted a water satchel from around his neck and held a corner of it up to Junmyeon.  
  
“Here. Drink.” The command was curt, and so drink, Junmyeon did. The stale, clear liquid felt raw going down his throat, but the relief was instantaneous. He gulped before the satchel was whipped away from him. “Not that much. Save some for the rest of us, why don’t you,” said the pirate with a scathing tongue.  
  
While Junmyeon panted, still halfway delirious from his injuries and thirst, a second man appeared and loomed higher than the first. He was tall, blond, thin but with a muscular frame, and he glared down harshly. Junmyeon expected to be told off; at the very least to be kicked since the man's boot was already edging against his chained leg. Instead, the reprimand went to the first pirate.  
  
“Give him another drink, Kyungsoo.” It wasn't out of sympathy though. He spoke like every word was precious and to the point, as if Junmyeon was merely a problem to be dealt with quickly. “He's worth nothing if he dies of thirst. And I thought I heard you call for Yixing. Get him.”  
  
“Aye, captain,” said the shorter man, Kyungsoo. He waited just long enough for Junmyeon to take another shallow sip of water before he tugged it back and started to walk away.  
  
“Wait,” the captain called him back. “Why is the other one still on deck?”  
  
Junmyeon whipped his head around to stare at Tao who was beginning to curl in around himself, frightened. Evidently Kyungsoo didn't have an answer. He opened his mouth, and then closed it, stuttering something that sounded like, “M-Minseok said...”  
  
“Then,  _get Minseok too_ ,” he instructed him, his slow words being the only indication that he was annoyed.  
  
This pirate captain, as Junmyeon observed him stealthily, couldn't be older than thirty, if he was even that. He might have been much younger except that his skin was bronzed and chapped from the sea winds, and his tone was rough, his expression cold. Everything that made up the life sailor who lived on the other side of the king's laws.  
  
“Are we for ransom?” Junmyeon dared to ask before the man walked away. He was still trying to separate the facts in his head. Shipwrecked sailors they were, and they'd been rescued by pirates?  
  
The captain smirked down at him. “You are,” he spat casually. “Try not to die on me. I'd sadly miss the gold if you did.”  
  
Junmyeon spared once glance at Tao, fearfully aware that the captain hadn't indicated if Tao was  _also_  for ransom. He was also apparently not welcome on deck for much longer, and that set off a pain in his gut. Junmyeon realized at this moment that he feared more for the boy's life than he did his own. He was absolutely sure now that he owed his life to the deckhand for getting him off the ship and keeping him afloat. The pirate, however, merely followed Junmyeon's gaze and smirked again, this time with a brief backwards tilt of his head, evidently humored by the object of Junmyeon's concern.  
  
“Don't worry about this one. I think the boys have plans for him later.”  
  
“Don't you dare harm him!” Junmyeon demanded angrily. He couldn't tell if that was the right response or not. The pirate captain continued to look amused, but Junmyeon could tell there was a limit to his patience, and he was probably very close to crossing it.  
  
“You want to try telling me that again?” This time the man bent down and crouched low on the tips of his feet, knees slightly apart as he threaded his fingers together and inclined his head, smile menacingly taut. “What was that?” he threatened, dared Junmyeon to speak again.  
  
Junmyeon had to admire his composure, the muscle strength he had to balance like that on the deck of a softly lilting ship. And while he decided how to respond this time, the captain's eyes pierced his own, continuing to taunt him. Junmyeon didn't dare look away. He was a ship's captain and heavily decorated officer of the royal navy, and this was just some lowly rogue pirate captain, no doubt one of the many Junmyeon was supposed to be out capturing.  
  
“What happened to the rest of my crew?” he asked instead of threatening the pirate again. No good would come of it, either to him or to Tao.  
  
“You mean the rest of your  _shipwrecked_  crew?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
The man sighed, exhaling slightly as if considering how to answer a question about today's dinner meal, and not about the fate of over a dozen good men. He stood up before answering. “Some survived. Some drowned. The ones that swam away from us when we got there to salvage, we let live. The ones who tried to fight back, well... I wouldn't call them the lucky ones.”  
  
And then he turned to walk away.  
  
Junmyeon scowled behind his back, furious beyond measure at the pirates’ callous treatment of his men, infuriated by the still open fate of his cowering deckhand, angered by the pirate captain for no other reason than his manner, and for the fact that Junmyeon was captive on one of the very vessels he was supposed to be out destroying.  
  
“Do you even know who I am to send for ransom, you treacherous bastard!?” he yelled before the man was completely out of earshot.  
  
The pirate captain slowed, turned around, and smiled. “Of course,” he called out. “I found some of your personal effects in the wreckage. By the way, I'm Captain Oh Sehun. Remember that for the next time you want to call out my name. I won't be so gracious then.” To a third pirate who was just approaching, the captain turned to sharply, and with more venom than Junmyeon had yet heard him use, he said loud enough for Junmyeon to overhear, “Change his head bandage. And then have him flogged enough times that he doesn't forget where he is. He's not a captain anymore. Not on  _my ship_.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The head wound wasn't serious according to the man who unwrapped the bandage strips, cleaned it, and replaced it with new ones. “Just a surface scratch,” he told him. His name was Yixing and he rushed neither his words nor his actions, moving and speaking both in always a slow, deliberate manner. “A piece of wood from your ship. I drew out splinters from it.” He smiled, and even though it wasn't a particularly friendly smile, the professionalism of it was startling to Junmyeon. “I'll be back after the flogging. Take care.”  
  
They brought out a boy named Jongin to deal the punishment. Kyungsoo returned on deck with him and another older man they addressed as the captain's second-in-command: Minseok, the one who evidently had a plan for Tao. He was short, probably older than the captain, but he carried himself like a person used to both receiving and giving orders. Junmyeon watched as he unshackled Tao's legs and attempted to drag the boy up. Tao flailed, unused to standing after spending so long lying down. He looked fearful, but he didn't cry out. Instead he bit down on his lip through the pain of having to move and courageously shrugged off Minseok's arm as he found his center of balance. Junmyeon was silently proud of him, even though it was clear that Tao was too weak and fatigued to really fight back. Minseok had his arms restrained behind his back in no time, halfway wrestling him into submission.  
  
“You got him?” Kyungsoo asked, although he didn't move to help.  
  
“Got him,” Minseok replied curtly.  
  
Once again though Junmyeon grew anxious and demanded to know where they were taking him, and for what purpose. Kyungsoo almost laughed. “You think we know? That's for Jongdae to decide.”  
  
“Who's Jongdae?” Junmyeon tried to ask, but Kyungsoo only shrugged.  
“How about you ask less questions and worry about yourself? Jongin here has a pretty strong lash.”  
  
The boy didn't look like he could do murder, or raise a hand to somebody, let alone a whip. Barely as old as Tao probably with a puppy-like face and dark straight hair badly in need of a cut, he stood shyly behind Kyungsoo until he heard his name being mentioned.  
  
“Is that how you pirates work around here?” Junmyeon continued to berate them with a wry smile. “Clean a man up and then beat him down again?”  
  
“We do what our captain tells us to do,” replied Kyungsoo, bored. “Something you should learn as well. It'll be a nice long sail. I'd get used to it if I were you.” He paused there and then actually yawned. “Now, try not to underestimate the kid here, and kindly strip for me? I don't actually want to get my hands dirty.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
One of the first things Junmyeon would learn about being a prisoner on a pirate ship was to take Kyungsoo at his word. The welts on his bare skin stung deep and painful, although they were fortunately not enough to make him pass out. Kyungsoo claimed they were going easy on him and Junmyeon decided to take it and not complain. He definitely wasn't asking for more. When Jongin was done, he actually rolled up his whip and bent low to lift Junmyeon up under one shoulder, Kyungsoo taking the other, and they walked him across the main deck, around the quarterdeck and up a half stair into part of the crew's cabin area. There were only two rooms there, and he was lead into the one on the left. There he was laid out naked on his stomach and Yixing reappeared just as he said he would. Junmyeon gripped his teeth while the man cleaned his wounds and spread ointment across his back and thighs, all in silence until Junmyeon could breathe a little easier.  
  
“Whose bunk am I in?” he asked.  
  
“Mine,” Yixing easily. “Just for now. It really won't do us any good if you get sick and die, and personally, I'll take offense to that since it would mean my skills aren't as good as I say they are.”  
  
Junmyeon managed something that sounded like humor. He huffed and received the same polite, professional smile Yixing had given him before.  
  
“I want to see Tao,” he said though.  
  
“No use telling me that,” Yixing replied. “How about you rest and get some sleep?”  
  
“Can't I least get my clothes back?”  
  
“What, the rags we found you in? No use now. I'm locking you in. Wouldn't recommend trying to barge your way out. There's nowhere to go unless you want to incite a mutiny, and good luck finding anyone to turn against Captain Oh. We already did that together once, under his direction. Goodnight.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Sehun's eyes were tired. With the last rays of sunlight shining weakly in through the windows of his captain's quarters, he sighed and put down the quill. The ink on his letter nearly dry, he read it over one last time, the ransom notice he would deliver at the next port they put into. It would travel faster on land and by the time they reached the next port, perhaps then they'd have an answer.  
  
A captain of the royal navy was a good catch, particularly this one, Junmyeon. Sehun knew most of the names of the high officers in the fleet. He wouldn't bother appealing to the government. Junmyeon's name came from a long line of wealthy, proud Kims who'd pay anything to get their precious son back so he could continue the line of stalwart sons fit for the navy. They were practically royalty already, so it was no wonder Junmyeon thought he had the right to act cheeky, although he did make it look good.  
  
A knock on the door disturbed his thoughts. “Yes?” he called.  
  
“Captain, it's Chanyeol,” barked a strong voice from the other side.  
  
“Enter.”  
  
The tall man came in, one of Sehun's earliest friends on the ship, the same one they'd sailed on as youths for years before turning a mutiny against their harsh, intolerable captain. Nobody had liked the man, and not everybody liked Sehun at first either, but through Chanyeol's instigations, everyone of his current crew now respected him. It made things easier in life, and Sehun never forgot how much of that he owed to his friend's personable nature. Where Sehun had to be harsh, Chanyeol acted as the friendlier extension of Sehun's will.  
  
“Captain, we're about ready! Shall we go up together?” He was beaming.  
  
“They got the boy cleaned up already?”  
  
“Under Minseok's careful supervision, aye, captain, he's ready.”  
  
Sehun sighed, still not entirely sure about all this. Taking on another mouth to feed just for sport seemed like a grand waste of resources, and yet- he couldn't really deny the men their fun. It'd been so long since they had anything to get excited about that wasn't only the shimmer of gold.  
  
“Are we... sure about this?” he asked Chanyeol pointedly.  
  
“Minseok is sure,” Chanyeol nearly stuttered.  
  
“Oh, well, if Minseok is sure...” Sehun smiled, and then he laughed cautiously. “Fine then, let's go.”  
  
The men were already crowded around the boy on the main deck. Tao, if Sehun remembered it correctly, had been fitted with a cleaner pair of trousers and a belt. His torso was bare but toned. It shone brightly in the last rays of dusk, but even more brilliant than his skin was the tattoo inked in dark, thick strokes along his left bicep, an elaborate depiction of a bolt of lightning entwined and crashing around an hour glass.  
  
He looked terrified though, as if everyone had gathered to see a sacrifice and Tao was it. His eyes darted around, as menacing as he could make them for someone on his knees, shirtless, shoeless and with Minseok double checking the rope knot that held his hands behind him. Only two of the crew were missing.  
  
“Where's Luhan?” Sehun asked around.  
  
“Gone to fetch Jongdae on the gun deck,” Kyungsoo replied. Behind him stood Jongin who was eyeing the shirtless prisoner bashfully, and Yixing who seemed amused. Minseok and Chanyeol were the only ones truly giddy about the whole thing, although their imminent glee did nothing to persuade Tao that he wasn't in for a rough ride. Sehun smirked above them all.  
  
“The other one still in your cabin?” he inquired of Yixing.  
  
“Aye, captain. I left him locked up.”  
  
As the man spoke, Luhan's head was spotted emerging from the hatch, a befuddled man behind him: Jongdae finally coming up for a breath of air and having no idea what was in store for him.  
  
Sehun clapped his hands together once, definitively starting the night's affair. “Well, shall we?”  
  
Luhan, looking about as giddy as Minseok and Chanyeol, suddenly pushed Jongdae forward until he was standing within the ring of pirates, Tao in front of him. He was, however, too confused to actually look at the boy.  
  
“What... is going on...? Guys?” he asked with a suspicious smile, looking from one face to another.  
  
“Jongdae, look!” Chanyeol urged him.  
  
“Look... where?” he briefly eyeballed the prisoner but didn't apparently get it.  
  
“Look! Look at his arm!” Chanyeol cheered again, but Jongdae only rolled his eyes.  
  
Sehun's focus wasn't on Jongdae though. His gaze was on Tao's, who was looking up at Jongdae with mild shock and alarm, specifically at Jongdae's arm where beneath his rolled up sleeve a tattoo was partially visible. And it looked remarkably like his own. Tao made a rasping noise, choking through his surprise. It drew Jongdae's attention and just as his eyes alighted on the mark on Tao's arm, Minseok started whooping.  
  
“Look what we found in the salvage! What was the story you've telling us for months and months now? Port during the holidays and you got drunk at a bar, met a handsome, tall stranger and got matching tattoos? Well? Is this the guy!?”  
  
Judging by the dropped jaw and matching identical expressions on each of their faces, it was.  
  
“You!” Jongdae exclaimed a trembling finger pointing at Tao's arm. “You!” He looked around at the rest of the pirates. “All of you! What? Where? How?”  
  
Tao had yet to speak; he was still in shock, so much so that he'd sunk back on his heels, and Minseok wasn't even holding him still anymore but he didn't move.  
  
“Minseok picked him up from the shipwreck. We were going to dump him but he recognized the tattoo before that,” said Chanyeol.  
  
Jongdae immediately stared at Sehun. “Captain, you knew?”  
  
“Of course.” Sehun inclined his head, happily enjoying the scene. It was a well-known fact that Jongdae did stupid things when he was drunk. They tried never to leave him alone on those occasions, but every now and then it happened. Like the time six months ago when they'd slunk into a port city under the guise of a merchant vessel so they could make some repairs. Jongdae had gone off gallivanting alone, and he returned the next morning with a hangover from hell, a reddened, freshly inked arm, and tales about a gorgeous, gorgeous man but he didn't know where he'd gone when he awoke. Sehun honestly didn't expect it to be a boy barely of age from a royal navy ship, but then the stories Jongdae had told of their immediate, intuitive love and the drunken slurs that lead them to crafting the design all pointed to a one-of-a-kind tattoo, so there was no way Tao was  _not_  Jongdae's long lost one-night love. The blushes on both their faces now proved it all the more. Jongdae was, shockingly, speechless.  
  
“Did we find your lover boy?” Luhan teased loudly, smacking Jongdae on the back of the head. The man barely felt of the impact of it, for he continued staring at Tao in weird mixtures of amazement, but also horror because of the nature of this rude, public unveiling. Everyone jeered between the two of them; even Sehun managed a few.  
  
“Shut up,” Jongdae cried, mortified. And Sehun felt oddly that this may not actually go over very well.  
  
“But?” Luhan continued mercilessly. “Whatever happened to 'kissy kissy' and he was the 'love of my life'?” he cried with mirth, while Jongdae's face reddened and darkened even more.  
  
“Shut up, I was just joking!” he yelled above the roars of laughter. Tao's face, which had never dropped below 'surprise' now turned murderous. As if to counterattack the effect of his words Jongdae immediately laughed and tried to make light of the whole thing, but Tao was, all without speaking, spitting mad. He flung off Minseok's hand on his shoulder and forced the smaller man a few steps backwards. Then he lifted himself up onto one knee, and then to his feet as he appeared to rage-stalk Jongdae. His buddies immediately split, half to draw him back, half to contain Tao. Sehun watched it all with sad sigh and a shake of his head. He let the men deal with the situation before stepping in, just as Tao was about to say something.  
  
“Men, I think we've had enough spectacle here tonight. Jongdae, you are hereby charged with Tao's well being and upkeep. Kyungsoo, Chanyeol, assist them to their quarters and keep them from killing each other. Everyone else to their duties, or merriment, whichever you prefer.” Then he stalked off, knowing truly that half the crew would be drunk before long. As long as no one threw up on his shiny boots he'd be okay.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Sehun stood at the helm through most of the night, the yowls of his happy crew billowing from below for not even Jongdae's mood swings could put them down. Somewhere in the early hours of the morning the mirth died back while everyone slept, and just before dawn Minseok came up to relieve him.  
  
“Report,” he told the yawning man.  
  
Minseok looked confused. “Sky's clear... everyone's sleeping...” he started to say with a frown.  
  
“I meant, anything on the two captives,” Sehun clarified his point.  
  
“Oh. Oh, the captives. Nothing, captain. At least, we know Jongdae and Tao are still alive, although I'd have loved to witness that volatile reunification. Then again, maybe not... And I'm assuming the other  _former_  captain made it through the night since Yixing didn't say anything just now.”  
  
“He was awake?”  
  
“Who, Yixing? Yes. I passed him on my way up here.”  
  
“Excellent, thank you, Minseok. Take over.”  
  
“Aye, captain. Good morning. Enjoy your rest.”  
  
Instead of returning to his quarters for a few hours of sleep, Sehun's legs found themselves down a deck and outside their medic's cabin. He hesitated for only a moment before retrieving a key from the heavy ring on his belt. No doors on this ship were locked to the captain. He pushed inside, his eyes adjusting to the dark room with its single round aft-side window. Only a little light poured in through the open door and the window. Sehun could barely make out the sleeping form on Yixing's bunk, a very naked former naval captain strewn out on his stomach and not a single sheet to cover him up. Sehun guessed the man hadn't wanted anything touching his healing whip marks, most of which lay across his bronzed back, and a few more on his much paler buttocks and thighs.  
  
He seemed so much smaller this way, dainty in structure although quite muscular. The width of his thighs, arms and the heavily taut muscles of his back and shoulder blades showed that. He made a slight waking noise as Sehun took a step inside, closing the door behind him. Without a care for the man's sleep, Sehun noisily drew up a chair, scraping it along the floor, and sat down quite close to the now waking man. And there, he waited until he was noticed, arms crossed against his chest, one ankle perched across his knee, gaze roaming about the small cabin but mostly on the man.  
  
Junmyeon woke up in some discomfort, Sehun smirked to see. He groaned as he moved and it took a while before he swiveled his head and realized that it wasn't Yixing sitting next to him so patiently. On the other side of Sehun's chair lay Yixing's already made second bunk.  
  
“Captain Oh?”  
  
Sehun was pleasantly surprised to hear himself so properly addressed. He allowed a strained, mocking smile in reply.  
  
“ _Mr._  Kim. How was your night? Was it nice? Is the cabin to your liking?” He leaned closer, speaking softer and seemingly curious.  
  
The captive Junmyeon actually laughed at that, a slow-simmering chuckle that continued to amuse the pirate captain long after it was over. Meanwhile he heaved his apparently aching body around until he was sitting up on the bed, legs dangling off and oblivious to his nudity. Sehun on the other hand leered at him, doing everything within his power to make him uncomfortable. To his ire though, all his efforts seemed wasted on the naval officer. Junmyeon grinned back, grimaced only due to pain and looked about the room as if to assess his accommodations.  
  
“A little damp, but it'll do.”  
  
Sehun was no longer very amused. “There's always the cargo hold if you'd like a change of scenery.”  
  
“I think I'm good here, thank you. Do you mind if I get dressed,  _captain_?”  
  
For a moment Sehun had no idea how to reply, having brought nothing with him, nor having any intention of bringing such a present. However, then he noticed a stack of folded clothes on Yixing's bed, and he almost cursed his medic out loud for being such a bleeding heart. It would be contradictory to deny Junmyeon now. He inclined his head, the only affirmative he would concede. Junmyeon gritted his teeth and pulled himself to his feet, swaying widely away from Sehun's seated form as he stalked to the other bed. The trousers were faded brown; the tunic had once upon a time been white. Sehun stared, but he offered no help as the man struggled to stand upright, carefully insert one leg and then the other into the pants. He tied the drawstring and reached for the shirt, and this part required even more finesse but Junmyeon suffered through it alone. Sehun doubted that shirt would last a full day without incorporating some stain from the wounds on Junmyeon's back.  
  
“Is there something you want from me?” he asked, when he was finally dressed. He stalked back to his original bunk and perched there softly, wincing a little from the pressure against his thighs.  
  
“No,” Sehun replied. “Merely checking in on you.”  
  
“How kind of you. Though I never knew it was a captain's duty to complete such tasks.”  
  
“Wouldn't  _you_  like to know everything that's happening on your ship?” Sehun asked.  
  
Junmyeon smiled at him. “I suppose so. Though to observe a poor prisoner like me while dressing, that is not typical, I think?”  
  
Sehun refrained from smiling back. “A coincidence, Mr. Kim.”  
  
Junmyeon pursed his lips and nodded, but instead of pressing the matter of why Sehun was here, of which Sehun had no real answer other than plain curiosity and a need to demonstrate his authority, he dropped the topic. “How is the boy? My deckhand?”  
  
“Hardly your deckhand now.”  
  
“Fair enough,” said Junmyeon, although he did look concerned. “But... he is...?”  
  
“A present for one of my crew,” Sehun quickly replied, if only to watch the color drain from Junmyeon's face.  
  
“What exactly have you done to him?” he demanded in a slow, low tone.  
  
“You're hardly in a position to be inquiring that,” said Sehun. “I am curious though, why you should care about a mere scrap of a boy. It's highly unlikely that he comes from any family of consequence. If anything, you should be thanking me for taking him on. Who knows what might have happened otherwise.”  
  
“I thought you claimed there were other survivors from my crew.” Once again Junmyeon was turning livid, and that delighted Sehun.  
  
“Ah, yes. The ones that didn't fight back.” He leaned back in the chair, hands cradling his head as he lorded it over Junmyeon. “Tao on the other hand put up quite a fight for you. Such loyalty. I didn't think they bred your kind of officers in the navy anymore. Perhaps you two were meant for each other? Oh, I'm sorry. That was before I gave him to Jongdae.”

 

 

 

 

Sehun let him stew for half a day. Locked up in the cabin with just Yixing bringing him food, Yixing who was under stern orders not to speak to him much, Junmyeon had no way of knowing that Tao was perfectly alright. That once confined to Jongdae's little corner in the gun deck they'd spent most of the night yelling and fighting. Kyungsoo claimed definitively that Tao had stopped raging once everybody else left, not knowing that  _he_  was still eavesdropping on another part of the deck. Mostly now, they bickered about whatever had happened that night and the more Kyungsoo overheard (and thereby reported to the captain) it was sounding like Jongdae and Tao's wild night was less the romantic interlude Jongdae had made it out to be, and more two strangers getting drunk and making some seriously questionable decisions. Like the matching tattoos, which Sehun actually thought looked nice and he had no idea what their problem was.  
  
However, on Yixing's third report that Junmyeon was practically beside himself from worry, the medic actually dared to speak back to him.  
  
“Captain, how long will you torture him for?”  
  
“I hardly call that torture,” Sehun replied blandly, “nor do I appreciate your suggestion that is.”  
  
“The boy saved his life. It's my understanding that he thinks of Tao like a brother. And besides...” Here Yixing hesitated, seeing the eyebrows rising on his captain's face, but Yixing always did like playing on the line.  
  
“Besides...?” Sehun egged him on.  
  
“I thought you valued loyalty.”  
  
“Right after gold, I do,” Sehun insisted.  
  
To this Yixing did not respond, but he didn't have to. Sehun wanted to smack him because the face he held, eye to eye with his captain, said everything his words did not, namely that it wouldn't cost a penny if Sehun put the two prisoners at ease and let them see that the other was perfectly fine. For now anyways. He didn't know what exactly they'd do with Tao, but he could always use another man on the ship, someone fit enough for manual labor. Keeping Tao might be a problem once they ever hit land, but that problem could be crossed whenever they came to it. He wasn't worth much, although Junmyeon definitely was.  
  
“Perhaps we can take him on a walk later today?” Sehun suggested with a wry smile.  
  
“As you like, Captain.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Later in the evening, there were the sounds of keys opening the cabin door, but a man shorter than Yixing entering.  
  
“Get up. Captain says you're to come eat with the rest of us,” Kyungsoo barked.  
  
Junmyeon didn't try to make conversation with the man. If not even Yixing would tell him what was going on, he had no hopes that this one would either. Instead, and because he was more than ready to get out, he dragged himself off the bed where he'd been laying on his stomach most of the day. He had to use the walls and the door frame to keep his balance. Kyungsoo waited just outside and raised a cold eyebrow at Junmyeon's weak state. He didn't offer a hand or a shoulder though, as expected, and so Junmyeon focused hard on walking on his own strength. He was pleased with himself that he didn't tumble down even once on their short walk around the quarterdeck, passed the area where he and Tao had been chained yesterday, and around the side of the ship towards the bow to the foc'sle where the men cooked and ate.  
  
As they passed the mainmast, Kyungsoo hollered, “Come eat!” to seemingly no one in particular. Junmyeon looked around confused until he heard the sounds of a boy scaling down the mast from the crow's nest lookout point high above. Kyungsoo didn't wait for Jongin get to down, and so neither did Junmyeon. He did, however, pause outside a partially closed wooden door long enough for Jongin to catch up, but as they stood there Junmyeon guessed it was more for the conversation inside the room than out of politeness waiting for the boy.  
  
At least two voices were shouting at each other, one of which Junmyeon recognized easily.  
  
“Oh, believe me! If I could scrub this thing off, I would!” That would be his deckhand, he realized with a jolt.  
  
“Oh, yeah? Well let's just get a knife and carve if off, huh?! Would that make you feel better? Luhan, where's your blade? Let's do this, alright? Alright? I'll do you. You do me. It'll be great!” yelled an even angrier, annoyed voice.  
  
A scuffling of chairs followed that pronouncement, followed by Tao's throaty shriek. “You're not getting near me with anything!”  
  
“Jongdae,” said a third voice, “would you quit it already? I'm not letting either one of your shave off your skin. Quit bickering or I'm calling the captain and maybe he'll toss both of you overboard and save me the trouble.”  
  
Still standing beside Junmyeon, Kyungsoo snickered softly. He glanced at Junmyeon as if to say,  _See? Everything's fine,_  but nothing of what he'd heard made any given sense.  
  
“I'm never drinking again,” Tao started whining loudly.  
  
“Likewise!” cried Jongdae with a huff.  
  
Luhan was silent for a moment, before suddenly sighing. “And here I thought we'd see a little romance onboard.”  
  
Jongdae immediately retaliated, “Like you care about anyone else other than-”  
  
At the same time, Tao started raving about the word 'romance' while someone other than Kyungsoo and Jongin kicked open the door languidly. Sehun had crept up behind them all, Jongin standing wide-eyed behind his captain's back, and everybody's attention was suddenly on him. He loomed tall in the doorway.  
  
“Captain!” Jongdae immediately modified.  
  
“Captain!” Tao also cried, seeing Junmyeon leaning in the doorway. Junmyeon swayed against the impact Sehun made when he and Kyungsoo passed him, barging into the room. Jongin actually waited for him to regain his footing and walked in fourth in line.  
  
“Evening, mates,” said Sehun as he stalked around a long dining table. He stood at the end without sitting down and appraised the quiet room. “Seems we have a commotion here?”  
  
“No, captain,” said Jongdae quickly.  
  
Sehun ignored him though, focusing on Tao at whom he glared. “Might I ask who you were addressing as 'captain' just now?” he asked with a cold, calculated sneer.  
  
Tao hesitated all of two seconds. “Y-you, captain.”  
  
Sehun smiled and took a seat. Luhan hovered at the bread oven, but everyone else took a seat when the captain waved a hand inviting them to do so. Junmyeon sat as far away as he could, although he couldn't help noticing Sehun's frown when he did so. He fell gently into a chair, wincing still from the lash marks. A minute later, Yixing entered and behind him another extremely tall pirate with the happiest expression Junmyeon had seen yet.  
  
“You're eating in here with us today, captain?” the man asked with some surprise.  
  
“Yes, Chanyeol,” Sehun sighed. Then he asked, “Where's Minseok? At the helm?”  
  
“He is, captain,” Chanyeol replied.  
  
Somehow between choosing a spot far away from Sehun, Junmyeon had found himself next to Tao on one side, Jongin on the other. It was rather amusing because Jongin seemed almost more scared of him, and yet he had been the one with the whip.  
  
“Supper's not going to serve itself, Mr. Kim,” boomed the captain's voice from across the table, before Junmyeon could take further stock of his surroundings. “Actually though, it just might, if you would be so kind as to serve us all.”  
  
Tao spared him an apologetic glance as Junmyeon heaved himself up again and walked over to Luhan. Then, with the utmost care he helped the man lug a bubbling pot of bone soup, salted meat, one molding slab of cheese, and hard bread to the table, before over half a dozen slimy and dirty hands fell over the meal. Junmyeon felt miserable, worn out, and nervous. The worst part wasn't the activity though, or the fact that almost no one around the table acknowledged him other than the captain, who continued to leer at him, or Jongin, who near silently whispered an apology for the lashes. It was the fact that Junmyeon still had no idea what was happening with Tao, and throughout the rest of the meal he was never given an opportunity to ask. Every time he leaned anywhere close in Tao's direction the captain blatantly interrupted their discussion, forcing Tao to sit back and be still. Jongdae was also no help. He only scowled or didn't say much of anything except to shush anyone who tried to talk to him. It wasn't until he started sweating from heat inside the room and pushed up one sleeve that Junmyeon even saw a hint of the tattoo, and suddenly he knew enough to gauge what they'd been arguing about earlier.  
  
Why though, why Tao and Jongdae had matching tattoos, and why they were fighting with each other, remained outside of his knowledge. When the meal ended, he was forced into cleanup, Tao was ushered elsewhere to perform other duties, and by the time Junmyeon slumped back into Yixing's cabin feeling as useless as a deadweight, he had no energy to even beg Yixing to tell him what was going on.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Several more days passed in very much the same way. By the third day Junmyeon was well used to being treated halfway between a slave and a prized prisoner. He did what someone, usually Kyungsoo or Minseok, told him to. He held almost no full conversations with anyone other than Yixing, who was sociable but still tight-lipped. At night he pretended he couldn't hear Minseok and Luhan in the cabin next to them, and during the day he pretended that the captain wasn't almost always observing him in some disturbing fashion, almost like how a stalker might keep tabs on his soon-to-be victim.  
  
Junmyeon kept his eyes and ears open for everything else though: what jobs each of the men seemed to occupy on the ship, what their personalities were, what their relationships were. Who was closest to the captain, and to each other. From his observations Junmyeon learned that Chanyeol was unpardonably friendly with Sehun, that Kyungsoo was only chatty with Minseok, and that Minseok looked after everyone like a younger brother (except for one). He also learned that practically everyone liked the captain, or the very least respected him beyond measure, but that everybody picked on Jongin like a baby, and the boy somehow allowed it. It was a weirdly dysfunctional family dynamic, and everyone was a working piece of the puzzle, even Tao since it was Jongdae's job to keep him out of mischief by his side. The two rarely came up from the gun deck, where Jongdae usually stayed, fiddling around with their weapons stores and powders or making small repairs to the hold. For this reason, it was only after three days that Junmyeon managed to see Tao up on the main deck.  
  
“Tell me what's going on,” Junmyeon whispered after checking that the deck was clear. “What's between you and Jongdae?”  
  
His former deckhand blushed almost scarlet. “Do you... remember the last shore leave we had, six months ago?” he began.  
  
“Yes, when you came back with that tattoo. What happened?”  
  
“Well, I... accidentally befriended a pirate, only I didn't know it at the time.”  
  
In any other situation Junmyeon might have found this comical. However, now he did not. “How did you accidentally befriend a pirate and not even know about it?” he demanded through clenched teeth.  
  
But Tao only gave him his best puppy dog face. “It was the rum, captain. I didn't mean to...”  
  
Junmyeon swallowed his reprimand. “Careful that Captain  _Oh_  doesn't hear you addressing anyone other than him that way,” he warned, fearful now as they heard steps approaching from elsewhere along the deck. “Keep doing what you're doing,” he said quickly. “We'll figure a way out of this situation soon, I promise.”  
  
“Thank you... captain,” Tao whispered gratefully, and the two sprung quickly apart before anyone noticed they'd even been together.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
On the fourth day, the ship came within sight of land. It made Junmyeon instantly more wary, and alert, especially as they drew closer and he began to recognize the trademark landscape of his home country, although they were still quite far from his home port. He pretended not to know it, although how little the pirate captain believed in his innocence was quickly made apparent. Instead of performing his after supper duties in the galley with Luhan, Sehun called for him to stand up and follow him.  
  
Junmyeon had never visited the captain's quarters, which he learned were right overhead his and Yixing's current cabin. In a way, that was already daunting, knowing Sehun had been above him all this time, although he should have known. His quarters were also bizarrely fancier than Junmyeon's had been back on his old ship. Perhaps because Sehun had no real home port, but he kept his nicest treasures in his room or at least in several large, locked and bolted chests. His bed was over one and a half times the size of Junmyeon's current bunk, bolted to the wall, and he even had a replica of a modest sitting room placed before the large window looking out beyond the disturbed waters of the ocean they left behind. It was here that Sehun asked him to have a seat, and Junmyeon did so, glad for once that his lashes had healed and it no longer hurt to sit down.  
  
“I want to know about the navy's sailing maneuvers,” Sehun jumped right into the topic.  
  
Junmyeon pretended not to know anything. “Do you mean where I was ordered before becoming shipwrecked, guest passenger on your worthy vessel? We were only headed out to accompany some merchant ships.” He shrugged.  
  
“Spare me your garbage, Mr. Kim. I'm well aware there was a larger order given out to the royal navy officers in your fleet about a planned, intentioned assault against any non-merchant, non-passenger vessels. I want to know where these attack points are so that you,  _my dear sir_ , don't happen to die before I see you safely delivered to your home sweet home... and I a little bit richer for it.” He smiled.  
  
It shouldn't have surprised Junmyeon that a pirate as intimidating as Sehun already had an inkling about this, but he pretended to cover it up anyways.  
  
“Do you think I value my life, captain, more than I do any secret naval operations, if we had one such as you're describing?”  
  
Sehun leaned back in the chair he'd taken across from him, crossed his arms, and smirked. “You're welcome to have it your way, Mr. Kim, but then you and Tao will likely die on this ship, and nobody will ever know you weren't pirates first. On the other hand,” he leaned forward and smiled enticingly, “get me and my ship through all the checkpoints to our next destination, and I promise you: once I have your ransom money in hand, you  _and_  Tao may walk away, the boy free of charge,  _if_  he still wants to go.”  
  
“You'd let him leave, just like that?” asked Junmyeon incredulously. By outward appearances though, he kept calm. “Weren't you just bemoaning the need for more laborers on this boat? Now you'll give him up for free?”  
  
“You mistake me, Mr. Kim, if you think I want one extra deckhand over the safety of everyone else in my crew. Now, let's you and I talk this thing out, shall we?” In a theatrical whisper he added, “And don't worry. I won't tell the royal fleet that you were anything other than the most  _silent_ of captives.”  
  
It took some major concentration on Junmyeon's part to stand side-by-side with the pirate captain looking over maps of the coastline and the sea and only give away the absolute most pertinent routes where they were unlikely to be accosted. It would take some island hopping and swinging about, but Junmyeon was sure it was necessary for all of their survival. And besides, based on the port of their destination, it might just be ideal enough to see not only himself and Tao safely off the ship before the end of this cruise, but also with all the pirates behind bars. He would have to plan it just right, and in the meantime take every precaution to see they reached the first port safely, else Tao might remain a pirate prisoner forever, Junmyeon's family would be out an enormous sum of money, and Junmyeon himself might yet be court-martialed for relaying military secrets. It was a tricky business indeed.  
  
Sehun on the other hand, seemed to approve of their plans. He sighed happily, although still cheekily, as he traced the pads of his fingers along their agreed upon route. “Looks good, yes?” When Junmyeon didn't immediately answer, he tipped Junmyeon's chin up with a nudge of his fingers. His head resisted just enough that when Sehun drew his hand away, Junmyeon's chin dropped down, a mockery of a nod of affirmation. He held in his scowl, keeping a neutral face instead as he faced the pirate captain in a silent challenge.  
  
“It better look good,” Sehun restated, “else it's your ass on the line.” For the second demonstration he held one hand to the side of Junmyeon's trousers right above the seam and jabbed him sharply with one finger. Neither of them looked down to where his hand touched Junmyeon's skin, but this time Junmyeon nodded of his own will.  
  
“Yes. Understood,  _captain_.”  
  
He slept fitfully that night, kept awake partially by Yixing's soft snores, partially because of the plans he was drawing up in his head. And partially because of the feeling of proximity to the captain that day. Junmyeon had always been a very private person, quicker to retreat and withdraw unless someone drew him out, but hardly anyone dared to do that with a captain of the royal navy.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
They sailed into the port village several days later looking for all the world like a legitimate merchant vessel. They flew a national flag and several mock guild sigils that Kyungsoo was evidently handy at creating from scratch. Overall Junmyeon was impressed at the operation, although he was definitely taking notes as to how they did it. Probably of course it helped that the men at the docks knew who they were, or were paid pretty bribes to pretend they did  _not_  know who they were.  
  
Regardless of their entry though, Junmyeon was shocked that he did not need to do anything special to get himself a shore leave pass.  
  
“You're coming with us,” Minseok informed him sternly. “There's a person on land we need to have see your face, to confirm you live. Captain's orders, come along.”  
  
They dressed Junmyeon in a disguise, real boots and a cloak too large for him, but it had a cape and hood which concealed his face, and also fit the atmosphere. It was a dreary day, had been sprinkling for hours even before they docked and every now and then a sudden downpour drenched the area. Junmyeon tried to pay attention to what everyone else was doing on ship, but for the most part they were being secretive about it. Tao was not allowed to leave at all, and the others merely scattered, pretending to be on official haggling business. Before they even stepped foot across the gangplank to the docks, Kyungsoo had already returned from a mysterious errand. Luhan as well had already been ashore and was on his way back carrying two crates of noisy, squabbling chickens that would provide them with eggs for a few weeks, and then meat. He passed Minseok with a pert nod and continued on his way across the deck.  
  
Sehun joined them just before they set off, and so Junmyeon walked, the pirate captain on his left, the first mate on his right. No one would guess that the hand digging sharply through his cloak at his back, anchoring through the material to his belt wasn't just the captain's way of holding onto him in the crowd. Junmyeon had no way to run. Not that he planned on doing that just yet. He wouldn't leave without Tao, but of course Sehun didn't trust him.  
  
Farther from the docks, but still along the main road close to the harbor, the crowds thinned out although Sehun still did not let him go. The three of them walked so close to one another in the rain that it didn't appear amiss. Junmyeon though nearly blanched white from the irony of the place where they ended up: El Dorado Tavern, a pub Junmyeon was actually quite familiar with, but neither Sehun nor Minseok needed to know this. This would actually work out perfectly in his favor, if he could swing it just right.  
  
The place was dark, perfectly right for a gang of pirates to come to do business.  
  
“Kyungsoo confirmed he'd be here?” Sehun asked right before they walked in.  
  
“Yes. He'll be here.”  
  
 _Who,_  Junmyeon had the urge to ask, but he kept silent. He was certain it all had to do with his ransom notice, and he was right.  
  
The tavern owner was the first person they met, a very tall man who greeted them impersonally, and then seemed to recognize them. He recognized Junmyeon too; he just didn't make that noticeable. Yifan was the kind of man who could read a circumstance quickly. He greeted both pirates by their first name, which was as much obscurity as they were likely to get.  
  
“Sehun, Minseok,” he said in a deep voice. There was actually discretion in not saying their last names.  _Captain Oh_  would be a dead giveaway to someone who was aware there was no such captain in a legalized merchant fleet. “I see you're in town for a while?”  
  
“For an evening,” said Sehun. Without further preamble he negotiated their way into a corner of the room, the darkest dingiest spot in the whole place and they thrust Junmyeon between them so that his face couldn't be seen by anyone entering the door. Yifan brought them ale without having to be asked. He wiped the sloshed liquid across his dirty apron and pretended he didn't even notice Junmyeon. This was going better than he'd even hoped for.  
  
For twenty minutes Sehun and Minseok conversed softly about nothing in particular, occasionally including Junmyeon in their nonsensical discussions about the weather just to keep up the pretense, and then another man entered the tavern. Junmyeon watched as the shorter individual stalked in looking harassed by the rain, but secretive. He looked around, seemingly at random, and then spotted the three in the corner.  
  
“Here he comes,” said Minseok who had a better view than Sehun.  
  
From out of the corner of his eye, Yifan also watched the man approach but he did nothing to stop him.  
  
“Fun weather we're having,” said the man. “This looks like a good table. Mind if I join?”  
  
“Please, join us,” said Sehun.  
  
For the next ten minutes they preceded to 'get to know' the stranger, whose name was Onew. There were other patrons still in the tavern, and another worker who occasionally paced by the bar around Yifan. Anything to keep up appearances that this wasn't a business transaction, and that Onew wasn't a special courier sent for by Sehun to deliver the ransom notice.  
  
“By the way, this is Mr. Kim,” said Sehun only once during that time, slipping a folded parchment sealed in wax into the man's cloak. “He has a letter he'd like you to deliver to his family.”  
  
Junmyeon smiled tightly, ever aware of Sehun's hand pressing roughly against his thigh, warning him unnecessarily not to try anything funny. A few minutes later Onew gave a polite excuse that he needed to go and thus he departed. Yifan brought them another tray of ale and Sehun, satisfied that part of the job was done and set in motion, drank heavily. Minseok wasn't quite as free with his drink but he did his pint of ale justice, and Junmyeon as well, if just to keep up the momentum.  
  
He wasn't prepared for Sehun to stop halfway through, his hand now nudging closer up Junmyeon's thigh, or to make a sudden excuse.  
  
“If you'll pardon me actually, I must make another stop on my way back to the ship. Minseok, see him back.” And Sehun was gone, but Junmyeon was sure that was a good sign anyways. Minseok messed with his coin purse looking for gold to pay for their ale. Junmyeon half joked that he could take it up to the counter for him, but Minseok looked at him slyly and blatantly refused. In any case, Yifan made one more round to their table and while the older man counted coin Junmyeon slipped Yifan a letter using paper and ink he'd stolen from Yixing's supplies. Yifan barely bat an eye. He assured Minseok he could give them a second and returned to the counter just as his employee asked him a question about their supplies stock.  
  
“What is it, Baekhyun?” Junmyeon overheard him ask, just as Minseok finally came up with enough coin.  
  
“Ready to go?” Minseok asked.  
  
“Fine with me,” said Junmyeon. His part of the plan was done as well, and it was easier than he'd even hoped for.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Sehun was barely back on the street again after checking in with his contact along warehouse row. Tomorrow morning early they'd unload some of the loot stored deep in the hold. Until then, however, Sehun needed to get everything set up. So far it was all going according to plan. He was looking forward to spending one night here and then by noon tomorrow they'd be gone, one set of wares traded out for an illegal cache to be delivered at the next port, and hopefully by the time they reached there, there would also be a money packet negotiating Junmyeon's release. He was a tad bit sad to see him go, but then again: such was life.  
  
He didn't expect to be halted on the road by a hand to his arm, or turn around to face a panting, nearly breathless tavern worker that Sehun had seen occasionally when they popped into port.  
  
“Captain?!” cried the man as loud as he dared, which wasn't much fortunately. Sehun didn't really want to be drawing attention to himself, and Baekhyun knew it. He just wasn't brave enough to call him by his first name, as Yifan usually did.  
  
“What is it?”  
  
Given a little more subtlety, Baekhyun would have made a good spy, or a courier like Onew. Instead he was just great at collecting gossip and seeing things others missed with his fast little eyes. He inhaled and exhaled a few heavy times before he could wrap his tongue around words, and then he smiled like he knew something good.  
  
“What is it?” Sehun repeated. “This better be worth my time-”  
  
“Oh, it is!”  
  
And that was how Baekhyun related what he'd seen pass between Junmyeon's and Yifan's hands behind their backs.  
  
Sehun let him talk, kept his face cool and expressionless while Baekhyun recounted that Junmyeon had been in that place before, and that he knew Yifan well. How proud Baekhyun was for noticing something was going on, how impressed he was by his own foresight to slip out immediately afterwards, instead of going to check the stocks in the cellar. He beamed at Sehun, awaiting payment for gossip, and Sehun silently cursed. Not because he didn't want to pay it but because Junmyeon was a smart man who thought he could play him.  
  
“When does Yifan close the tavern?”  
  
“After midnight.”  
  
“Good. Return there and pretend you know nothing.” Sehun turned towards the ship.  
  
“Hey! What about my gold?” Baekhyun yelled from behind him, indignant.  
  
“Come by in the morning, and we'll see then how much your tip was worth.”  
  
“Hey!” Baekhyun cried again, but Sehun didn't mind him. He had to get back to his ship and dispatch Kyungsoo again, see if he could sneak into the tavern and fetch Junmyeon's letter, or else get it off Yifan himself. Sehun had seen Kyungsoo in action. He was a devil in the night who knew just how deep to draw a blade, not to kill to a man but to earn his fear. Yifan would never do something like that again, not under Sehun's nose. The true villainy would lie in how much the letter said or what plans Junmyeon might have, but either way Sehun was inveritably pissed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He waited until after midnight, once Kyungsoo returned, his round beady eyes shining, smile plastered over a self-satisfied smirk, and then Sehun read through the letter. He waited another half hour more to formulate a plan in his head and hopefully give himself enough time to get his anger under control. Then he woke Chanyeol from his bed, shared the news, and sent him off to, “ _Bring me Junmyeon_.”  
  
He left one lantern lit on the desk beside his bed, another one on the opposite wall behind the chairs and table, and then he artfully laid Junmyeon's handwritten letter on the desk. At the sound of footsteps approaching, he perched right in front of it, hands on either side of him along the ridge of the wood frame, weight balanced gently and one ankle crossed. Chanyeol opened the door revealing a confused and sleepy, shirtless former navy captain, and he shoved him in. Sehun knew Chanyeol would wait just out of earshot outside his door. Junmyeon wasn't going anywhere tonight if Sehun didn't want him to.  
  
As if he knew he was in trouble somehow, Junmyeon approached him slowly, one bare foot after another. He stopped halfway across the room, eyes hesitant, observant, cautious.  
  
“Captain?” he dared to ask, and there was such blatant disrespect in his formal, politely questioning tone that it nearly incited Sehun to violent anger. His eyes narrowed; they were probably red, and he curled his fists, nails digging into the wood splinters of the desk.  
  
“Mr... Kim,” he said hollowly.  
  
Junmyeon actually squinted at him, waiting for more, and there was no way he couldn't guess that Sehun had found his letter, not with the summons he'd just received and Sehun's obviously livid expression. Just to prove that Junmyeon was a lying, smiling bastard, Sehun procured the letter from behind his back and drew it out to where Junmyeon could see it. He watched his face, every muscle as the man looked at, recognized, and blinked away the evidence that he'd schemed behind the pirate captain's back.  
  
“I see,” was all he said. There was defeat in that tone, but not enough as Sehun would have liked.  
  
“You see!” Sehun shouted at him. Junmyeon flinched a hair's breadth. “You see, what? This letter that you wrote in your own hand? Ink and paper that you conspired to steal from somewhere within this ship? A letter you then intended to pass off behind my back? Did you think no one was watching your every move, all night long?”  
  
It wasn't exactly true, but Junmyeon didn't need to know that. Sehun had thought between himself and Minseok that Junmyeon wouldn't be able to try anything this evening. He didn't plan on Yifan already having knowledge of the man; else he  _would_  have hired a guy like Baekhyun to tail them the whole way on purpose. The fact that it was a mere accident Sehun even knew of this letter pissed him off immensely. It preyed upon his level of confidence, for where everything was always under control, Sehun's control, this had not been.  
  
And yet Junmyeon said I see as casually as he might  _see_  that he lost a round in a chess match.  
  
“What a clever move,” said Sehun scathingly, eyes roaming everywhere across Junmyeon's defiant posture. He wore only the thin, faded brown trousers that he used to sleep in, Yixing having leant him more of his clothes in the past few days. They hung loosely, low on his hips. Sehun had to remember his anger and force his head upwards. Junmyeon took one step closer to him, and then he stopped, a good few steps away, still creating a gap. Sehun couldn't tell if he was trying to intimidate him or just wanting to get his letter back, however stupid the notion might have been.  
  
“It was worth a shot at least,” said the man with a shrug.  
  
“Worth a shot?” Sehun repeated, teeth barely opening to speak. He shook his head incredulously. “And here I was going to let you and the boy, after I received my gold of course, walk freely off this ship.” He held the letter out as bait, waving it in the air. Junmyeon took another step closer. “And what does it say here...?”  
  
His captive did not speak; rather he bit down on his lower lip, squinting at the letter as if wondering what Sehun wanted him to say. Sehun didn't even know, but he knew that this was a good exercise in stress relief, drawing the man to him.  
  
“What does it say, Junmyeon?”  
  
The former captain's eyes widened at the use of the familiar name, Sehun only vaguely aware that he hadn't used it before.  
  
“I'll answer that for you,” he said. “I was going to let you and Tao walk away... alive...”  
  
“Tao had nothing to do with this.”  
  
Sehun smiled, one little victory won now with Junmyeon talking. “He didn't? Should I ask him to make sure? Jongin can ask him nicely, I'm sure. Or, should I do it myself? Let you watch?”  
  
A fire burned in the other man's eyes. “It was my own idea,” he insisted strongly.  
  
“Your own idea to what... set up a trap for me and my men as soon as we pulled into port?”  
  
Sehun couldn't help it. At some point he'd stepped forward too and Junmyeon was within arm's reach. He drew out the hand not holding the letter and let it graze against the other man's tanned collar bone, fingers trailing gently left until he held his shoulder firmly within his palm. The only distance between them was the length of Sehun's arm. He expected Junmyeon to pull away, to flinch at least, not to hold his gaze and actually take a half step closer. It threw him off, this slow invasion of his space. Just one more thing that was not in his control. Sehun decided to seize it, slowly. He maneuvered backwards, pulling Junmyeon with him by the shoulder, and when the back of his thighs found the desk once again, he slapped down the letter on the surface. It echoed across the room.  
  
“Look at it!” he demanded.  
  
Junmyeon actually did, and Sehun followed the gulp of his Adam's apple as he stared at his own writing. And then he glanced upwards again at Sehun, his inane confidence already returned. At the very least he was showing that he wouldn't be cowed, and that pissed Sehun off again. He swung him around until it was Junmyeon with his back to the desk and Sehun towering over him, forcing him to lean backwards at an uncomfortable angle. Barely once did he break eye contact before Junmyeon stared up and there was such defiance in that it made Sehun keen to assert himself. Using his height and strength he nailed Junmyeon to the desk, having no idea where to take it from here. He should have the man flogged again. He should chuck him off the ship. He could just have him killed. And all of those thoughts vanished the moment he leaned over Junmyeon, naturally skin to skin, and something hard touched him in the hips.  
  
Sehun almost choked. Junmyeon gasped, barely an inhale, before he swallowed and steeled his expression back to neutral, but Sehun caught it all. And he didn't move. Somewhere in between being dragged from his bed and tossed barefoot in the captain's quarters to being cornered against the desk, something in Junmyeon's brain got off to this, and the evidence was hanging between his legs, now crushed against Sehun. The mere thought alone sent a rush of blood gushing south in Sehun's own pants, a twitch he could not control, and he didn't want to.  
  
He still held Junmyeon by his left arm. Sehun used his right to dig at Junmyeon's shoulder blade and hold him immobile. He gaze flinched only once in the whole process, and that was to follow another slow gulp at Junmyeon's throat.  
  
“You're literally on the cusp of death here tonight, and you... like this?” Sehun pressed into him once, before drawing back only a little.  
  
Junmyeon didn't answer, although it did look like he was trying to contain a moan.  
  
“Or did you already come in this way? Excited by your own little plans, is that it?”  
  
“Not exactly,” the man finally answered.  
  
“Not exactly? Then what?” Sehun demanded in a low tone. “Yixing look good in his sleep? Is that it?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“No, what?”  
  
He wanted to be called captain. That was all Sehun was fishing for when he rearranged his feet closer to the desk, tangled behind Junmyeon's feet and pressing their hips together intently.  
  
“No, but I bet you do.”  
  
Sehun gasped, head thrown back when Junmyeon pushed his hips forward, letting Sehun feel his whole length and how hot it had become through the thin fabric of his pants. It was met with an almost equally hard erection, now that Sehun's fantasies were springing to life, literally. Junmyeon didn't attempt to throw him off though, not even with both of his hands braced behind him on the desk and Sehun's right arm sliding forward. Sehun no longer looked him in the eyes though. He was more interested in watching where his hand was exploring, moving forward across Junmyeon's muscled arm, across his torso, and even Junmyeon didn't look at him anymore when Sehun's fingers grazed lower and lower. Both watched as Sehun's hand dipped to the hem of his pants and Sehun stepped back just enough to allow space, to press his hand lower into the almost fully formed hardness there.  
  
This time Junmyeon groaned fully, a short clipped sound that sent tingles through every part of Sehun's body, including the hand that was now feeling up a rock hard cock, up and down very slowly. Then he went silent, eyes halfway closed and his jaw clamped tight and Sehun admired his fortitude even though he wanted to hear more. Even like this Junmyeon was fully in control of every part on his body, except for one.  
  
Still holding him by the shoulder, Sehun crushed one side of their bodies together, Junmyeon's right to Sehun's left but still they faced one another, and still Sehun's hand went to work. He drew it back and slowly felt at the drawstrings on Junmyeon's pants, and a smile joined Junmyeon's muscle-taut face when the cloth covering him up dropped to his thighs.  
  
Sehun reached for the muscle as soon as it was revealed. Almost burning in his hand, he stroked Junmyeon's cock, fingers gliding against the sensitive sweat-damped skin, slowly at first. Junmyeon still didn't give in, although his face was an even mixture of pleasure plus assurance. It was not the face of captive former captain whose manhood hung literally in the hands of a pirate captain, and Sehun wondered just what it would take to make that so? To completely own him?  
  
What would it take for Junmyeon to cave? To show either unadulterated bliss or fear, unmixed with defiance? Should he shove him to his knees, leave him hanging, and roughly force open his mouth? If Sehun drove his own aching cock down Junmyeon's throat and used him, would that do the trick? Satiate himself and then throw him away? Sehun's hardness jumped angrily at just the only the thought of it. He spared a glance upwards at the narrow lines Junmyeon's lips had become and wondered, imagined, what they'd feel like around him, on him, swallowing him.  
  
And then he looked higher, where Junmyeon's narrow blissed-out eyes were open finally and looking at his own, daring Sehun to do more with all the well intentions of rabid animal just waiting to spring.  
  
Sehun dropped him in a flash. Junmyeon even gasped when the hand on his flesh fell away and Sehun stepped back, furious at himself, furious at Junmyeon as well, and he wasn't sure which person he hated more. Junmyeon's cock still raised high against his abdomen, red and engorged and sweat permeated from everywhere else on his body. Sehun's too, although his own raging erection was still mostly concealed, but not entirely. Junmyeon actually looked at him, a lengthy gaze that made Sehun seethe from inside as well as the outside.  
  
“Get out of my sight,” Sehun snapped in a low voice.  
  
Slowly, as if Junmyeon had everything under his control - and Sehun was beginning to believe that he did - he righted himself from the desk and bent over slightly to pull up his pants where they clung to his thighs. With his erection he could nothing except to cover it. Then he walked swiftly to the door, Sehun moving out of his path when he did, and opened it. Without a backwards glance at Sehun he departed, and Sehun heard Chanyeol move forward to seize the man.  
  
Sehun breathed once, twice; then he ran to the door and barked out a final order to his friend to, “Chain that man to his bed until I say anything further!” Then he flung himself onto his bed, alone, scraped himself out of his clothes, and pulled sharply at his arousal. The mere seconds it took to come between his fingers was embarrassing, so was his disappointment that it was only his cock, or his cum and not Junmyeon's that dripped through his hand. He hoped Junmyeon burned in hell.  
  
  
  
  
  
Chanyeol said nothing about the state of Junmyeon's pants, tactful and decidedly not rough when he lead Junmyeon back to his cabin, now his prisoner's cell. From somewhere on his person Chanyeol produced a set of leather and hide cuffs attached to a long rope chain and knotted it well to a hook on the wall beside Junmyeon's bed. It wasn't comfortable; he could only lay on his back with his arms extended to the right. And that's how Chanyeol left him.  
  
Yixing shifted in his bed, awake ever since Junmyeon was dragged out. There was really no hiding the state of his erection from him though. It was highly noticeable, and just a bit painful. Junmyeon pretended nothing was wrong.  
  
Yixing moved again, looking over in the half-darkness. “Do you want me to-”  
  
“No,” said Junmyeon quickly.  
  
He thought he heard the other man chuckle slightly in his bed. “Well, if you're sure. Goodnight.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nobody questioned the captain the next morning when he ordered the crew to unload and reload the hold quicker than previously they'd planned. Nor did anyone think to say something to him directly when instead of sailing northwest to another island chain where they were due to drop their smuggled goods, Sehun sailed due north instead. No one except for Minseok, who was already walking a tightrope with the captain for his transgressions the night before.  
  
Sehun almost felt sorry for him. Of all the crew, Minseok was the only man older than Sehun and he'd never once made such a mistake to put the entire crew in danger.  
  
“You're going to get rid of him first,” Minseok said quietly to the captain who was manning the helm. “And we'll hit the island port on the way back?”  
  
Sehun nodded. “Time's against us. I can't be sure he didn't get out another message that we missed. Or that Yifan won't keep his mouth shut. If we're to receive the ransom, we need to be in place well before anyone else gets there.”  
  
“You think they'll definitely pay?”  
  
“Oh, they definitely will. Even Junmyeon's letter suggested they pay it first. They'll get him and Tao off first, and then spring the ambush.”  
  
“You should have had Yifan killed,” Minseok suggested.  
  
“Or, you shouldn't have let your guard down,” Sehun accused angrily.  
  
Minseok was officially apologetic, but Sehun wouldn't accept it. Not yet. Not until they were done with their prisoner would Sehun accept his first mate's apology, and in the meantime he let all the crew know it by demoting the man and elevating Chanyeol in his place. At least his friend knew how to keep his eyes open and his mouth shut. Chanyeol had said nothing about what might have happened between Sehun and Junmyeon in Sehun's quarters. On the other hand, he was suspicious there might be more to the plot and insisted Tao might be in on it.  
  
“Junmyeon said he wasn't involved, and I'm inclined to believe him,” said Sehun after Chanyeol suggested having Tao  _interrogated_. His friend was skeptical, but Sehun remained firm on that opinion. “And besides, if I touch one hair on that boy's head, Jongdae might try to stage a one-man mutiny. Actually, forget mutiny. He's got enough gunpowder down there to blow my head off, or else the whole damn boat,” Sehun griped to himself.  
  
“Perhaps you're right,” Chanyeol conceded, more to keep his captain in good spirits than because he really believed it. “Besides, the two prisoners never have time to meet on their own. It's... probably unlikely they're co-conspiring.”  
  
To even call Tao a prisoner these days was fanciful. Sehun had taken some time lately to observe the boy, particularly his bristly relationship with the ship's explosives' expert. Already they bickered like best friends, and flirted like something more. Also, if Sehun or anyone else was concerned about Tao's proximity to weapons and gunpowder, he needn't worry. Jongdae kept a firm watch on him every hour of the day, keeping him busy with chores, and he never actually let him near the dangerous stuff. Sometimes that's what they argued about, but when it really came down to it Jongdae was professional. More professional than Sehun had been with  _his_  particular captive, and that irked Sehun more than he cared to admit.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
They let Junmyeon come out of his cabin with supervision only during mealtimes now, and most of those times Sehun took his meals in his quarters with either Chanyeol or nobody for company. Junmyeon did not see him except once or twice in passing during the first couple days after setting sail. Everybody knew something had happened between them. Junmyeon caught people looking, speculating. At first it was only the news that he'd tried to pull a scheme back on land. Kyungsoo was particularly vicious towards him, Minseok scathingly upset because of his demotion, and even Chanyeol treated him with suspicion although he wasn't purposefully unfriendly. The others took their cue from them and the captain, and only Jongin had nice words for him, a small  _hello_  every now and then accompanied by a smile. Yixing obviously knew too, but he kept silent. Tao stared across the table at Junmyeon's seat of dishonor with a pitiful look every day, but Jongdae would not let him speak to him. Junmyeon was somehow grateful to the man for keeping Tao away. The less disgrace he put upon his once and former crew member, the better for Tao, although he didn't know now if Sehun would let him go. If he would even let Junmyeon go, alive.  
  
By the third day the suspicions took on a different look, thanks in part to Sehun's continuous refusal to even look Junmyeon's way. Whether the details of what happened in Sehun's room had leaked or not, it was becoming obvious that the discord between them was personal in nature. And that made it even stranger when out of nowhere, Junmyeon was requested in the captain's quarters.  
  
They had hit some rougher weather, a light storm that slowed their progress for a day or so, and then fog. Junmyeon calculated another three days of sailing to the port he figured they were heading, but only in good weather. He knew this landscape and this coastline. It appeared that Sehun did not, or else he was faking it on purpose to test Junmyeon.  
  
“Get us through the fog,” he told him, unrolling a map on his desk that only several days ago he'd pushed Junmyeon up against. “The rock formations, the coast, the underwater reefs. Currents coming out of this place here...” Sehun did not look him in the eyes.  
  
“Where exactly are we heading?” Junmyeon asked, because surely Sehun wouldn't be so brash as to waltz right into a port where Junmyeon had tried to set up an ambush. He would probably aim for one of the many coves surrounding the peninsula if he was smart.  
  
“You'll find out when we get closer,” was all the pirate said.  
  
Anything to get off this boat alive. Junmyeon did as he asked, and by the time they were through conversing, he was sure that Sehun knew more about the coastline than he claimed, and Junmyeon was wise to tell him truthfully everything he knew. He was dismissed soon after that and Junmyeon spent another partially sleepless night in his bunk, Yixing snoring nearby, thinking about how Sehun would have made a good colleague had he just lived on the right side of the law. Also, he hadn't missed the younger man's nervousness every time Junmyeon had gotten too close. He was aware, they both were aware, of the tension between them. The so far as yet  _not_  addressed tension. He wondered if there'd be a chance to fix that, before he left, dead or alive. It seemed Sehun was leaning more on him being alive. Maybe.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
One evening, two nights later, Sehun called him back again. Junmyeon found him almost the same way as he had every other night, although the pirate captain looked especially jumpy this time. He stood beside his desk, back cornered to the large window and he made no move to get closer.  
  
“I'm here to tell you that tomorrow will be your last day on this ship,” he told him curtly.  
  
 _So, it'll be death,_  Junmyeon automatically thought.  
  
“I'm sending you over land to the ransom drop. It's safer for me that way.” Sehun smiled.  
  
 _So, not death._  
  
“Where are- am I going...?”  
  
“You'll find out of course, tomorrow,” Sehun cut him off.  
  
Junmyeon should have figured that was the case. It also sounded like the captain would be remaining with his ship. Junmyeon had one more question though.  
  
“What about Tao?”  
  
Here Sehun smiled gravely. “Well, that's why I asked him and Jongdae to come up here as well. They should... ahh, here they are.”  
  
Jongdae came in first, looking around nervously like he'd never spent much time in the captain's quarters. Walking behind him even more nervously was Tao. Junmyeon crossed to a less crowded wall to give them room, and he returned no spark of emotion as his former deck hand caught his gaze; Tao was flushing brightly, worried.  
  
Sehun wasted no more time. “Tao, my boy. I've made a deal with your former superior here. He goes tomorrow so we can pick up his ransom money and _you_ , if you so wish, can go with him. Let it be known that this is an honorable deal. I ask nothing extra for your release, however...” he paused dramatically while Tao gulped uncomfortably. “You may also... stay.”  
  
“What?” Tao almost choked.  
  
“I said you don't have to go?” Sehun repeated lightly, almost playfully. “There's a place for you on this ship, and think of the spoils you'll earn. Even better pay than in the navy, especially once we divide the gold we're due to receive tomorrow.” He smirked in Junmyeon's general direction.  
  
Tao took a moment to digest everything, and Junmyeon didn't miss how still and frozen Jongdae had become behind him, nor how Tao kept peeking at the man's stony expression in his peripheral vision. Sehun gave him some time to mull it over, waiting until Tao could find his voice.  
  
“So, you'll either let me go tomorrow, free, alive...?” he asked, and Sehun nodded once. “Or I stay, and only Cap- Mr. Kim goes tomorrow... alive?”  
  
Sehun's eyes became hooded, but he nodded again. He crossed his arms and jerked his at Jongdae. “The two of you can leave. Report to me his decision in the morning.” When neither of them moved for a second, he barked out a frustrated, belated, “Dismissed!” and Jongdae immediately took Tao by the arm and dragged him out. Then it was just Junmyeon and the captain.  
  
Junmyeon considered him for a long time, and Sehun let him look. The other two were long gone before both one of them spoke, and Junmyeon figured he would start.  
  
“So... tomorrow?”  
  
“Tomorrow.”  
  
“I can go... just like that.”  
  
“Assuming payment is made.”  
  
Junmyeon cocked a grin, repeated, “Assuming payment is made... by my family, or... by me?”  
  
It caught Sehun off guard, but only for a second. “I'm only in this for the gold of course. In fact, you're way more trouble than I planned. I'll be glad to be done with you.” He sighed, pretending it was no big deal, and he shuffled forward a few steps like he was completely at ease. His shoulders hunched over his crossed arms, and he eyed the floorboards lazily.  
  
But Junmyeon didn't believe him, not entirely.  
  
Junmyeon didn't realize how close he was standing to the bed until he swayed, and his calves were knocking against the frame. Perhaps his face showed signs of his alarm because Sehun smirked at him, once, before Junmyeon got control of himself. What he didn't have control over though was the captain. And he wouldn't, until he did something.  
  
Sehun's eyes blazed when Junmyeon put his hands to his own trousers. He wanted to relish the moment, sing victory over the flushing red skin shining off the pirate's pale neck and cheeks. With a good ten steps still between them, Junmyeon delved even deeper into the role. Hands didn't fumble as he undid the ties at his waist, although Sehun's twitched in reply, hanging down by his sides, and Junmyeon looked him in the eye.  
  
“What are you doing?” the younger man demanded.  
  
Junmyeon smiled, still keeping eye contact although Sehun was beginning to fidget. He didn't answer, and Sehun's eyes dropped once to his pelvis, then quickly back up. They dropped again as the fabric began slipping down revealing the paler thighs that Sehun had only seen twice before. The captain's gasps mimicked Junmyeon's own when he felt the cool air settling around his half-erect cock. Then he wrapped his fingers around himself and tugged, gently.  
  
“What are you doing?” Sehun repeated breathlessly.  
  
“Nothing,” said Junmyeon. “But since who knows what tomorrow will bring...”  
  
Sehun stepped forward, two steps hesitantly and there he waited, throat bobbing heavily, lips tightly gripped together. Junmyeon removed his hand. His pants clung to his thighs, and a small sheen of sweat was starting to build upon his neck. Before the pirate could say anything else, Junmyeon whipped his shirt off over his head. It dropped onto the bed behind him, and then he dropped his hands back down to his sides, everything on display, a clear invitation.  
  
“What trick are you planning now,” asked Sehun like he couldn't believe it.  
  
“No trick. Just thought we could pick up where last we left off?” It would give Junmyeon something to remember in the days, years to come. How once he let his guard down with a pirate captain and lived to enjoy it. Or maybe Sehun lied and Junmyeon wouldn't make it past tomorrow. Perhaps the ransom exchange would go wrong, or his family wouldn't pay, or they'd all die anyways in a trap not of Junmyeon's making. His only plan hadn't gone through well, but that didn't mean his family might not prepare something else on their own.  
  
There were no givens in life, and definitely not after tomorrow. Tonight though... tonight there was one thing he could count on, and that was the pirate captain's  _want._  
  
Sehun closed the distance, slowly, a hard look on his face, and before Junmyeon could offer again, the man's hand was around him, dragging him out to full hardness. Junmyeon stifled his groan, his relief, and closed his eyes. Another hand anchored to his hip, fingers holding him in place, thumb brushing against his hairs and rubbing slight circles into his navel.  
  
“You  _want_  this?” the captain whispered harshly.  
  
Junmyeon didn't answer; he did, however, open his eyes, the only answer he was going to give. Suddenly Sehun was no longer gentle. Fingernails burned into his skin while the other squeezed tightly around his length and this time Junmyeon did make a strangled noise. It spurred the other man on as he held on tight, no longer pumping, but pressing firmer than almost he could take. Sehun practically sneered and Junmyeon gasped silently, the pressure on his cock making his mouth roll open and his body swayed back. Sehun used that momentum to pull him forward using his cock as a handle and this time Junmyeon toppled right into the pirate captain's clothed chest. Sehun let go and then there were two hands around his shoulders holding him place, and lips drawing hungrily at his own.  
  
The first kiss wasn't soft by any means describable. It was hot, raw, messy, overall urgent. Junmyeon put his hands to work finally, tossing Sehun's coat off his shoulders and his shirt over his head. Undressed, the pirate seemed so much younger, slimmer, and breakable. Without the artifice they were equal matches; the captain's only advantage was his height and Sehun put it to good use towering over him as the last symbol of his authority, or so Junmyeon thought.  
  
He wasn't prepared for those same hands holding him up to suddenly flip him around. He landed with a grunt on his stomach on the side of the bed, knees slipping down to the floor. Sehun followed him down, knees locked between Junmyeon's and one thigh pushing insistently between his bare ass. Junmyeon clutched at the blanket coverlet and felt one hand on the back of his head, gently putting it to the mattress. His whole body was on fire, a contrast to the coolness of the room, but he knelt there exposed and let Sehun explore. Hands from his neck, through his hair, along the exposed side of his face. Behind him Sehun's hips pressed against him, and he was hard. Junmyeon felt it against his backside, grinding, rutting, and the lack of direct contact was maddening.  
  
Sehun licked a trail down from his neck, tiny wet laps that explored his skin, and each kiss was accompanied by swirling fingertips. A few nails dug shallowly down his back and Sehun exhaled hard when he suddenly pulled away.  
  
“Stay there.” His voice was low, barely audible but Junmyeon understood it.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Yes, what,” he said, just hovering behind his ear.  
  
“Yes,  _captain.”_  
  
“Good.”  
  
He didn't move. Not when his knees ached, caught between his twisted, downed pants. Not against the bed where his cock pressed uncomfortably. Not when he heard Sehun floundering around trunks and drawers on the other side of the room. He could see him though when Sehun came back, watched out his side vision as the captain dropped a glass bottle onto the bed, kicked off his boots and practically ripped off his pants. And then he stood there, and waited.  
  
  
  
  
Junmyeon breathed shallowly against the bedcover, bare except for the fabric around his knees and calves. He looked every bit as gorgeous as Sehun imagined. Naked, he'd already seen him, but hovering, kneeling, and waiting... this was the image Sehun hadn't been able to get out of his head. Once more he dropped behind him on the ground, placed his weeping cock against the crack of Junmyeon's ass and held him roughly from behind. He felt the man stiffen at first, then relax.  
  
“So this is what you've been wanting,” he whispered into his ear, chest to Junmyeon's back as he wrapped his hands across the other man's chest. One dropped dangerously low to Junmyeon's crushed erection, splayed across his taut stomach muscles; the other played with one dark pearly nipple and Sehun reveled in the sounds that induced. It was almost unfair that he had to let go, but the oil he began massaging against his captive's entrance produced an even sweeter response.  
  
“Shhhhh,” Sehun teased. He nipped his ear once, the flesh bending against his teeth and Junmyeon cried out when two fingers slipped inside.  
  
He worked fast. What was patience when tomorrow waited on no one? Sehun forgot about everything else. Everything except his desire, and his want, and how he wanted Junmyeon coming undone because of him. The man arched into the bed frame, breathing heavier, and the beautifully ugly grunts from his clenched teeth against the mattress were better than music, better than the sound of coin, or the rush of the seas. Three fingers, and briefly four, and then Sehun was aligning his cock into the breach. Junmyeon held his breath, and Sehun plunged in. He sheathed himself in one go, every fiber in his body tensing at the feeling. There'd been no boy or girl for Sehun in half a year, and even though Sehun had wanted or had craved other bodies, he'd had no time to take them. Perhaps the men on ship might have been willing, but he wouldn't risk the relationship.  
  
Junmyeon, however, would be gone tomorrow. He thought about this, buried as he was deep inside the man, and his hands clung desperately to his hips when he pulled out the first time and drove back in. Junmyeon yelped, cried out the second time, and after the third thrust Sehun reached in front of him and pumped his heavy cock. It took the pressure off the pain and he guessed Junmyeon would be grateful. Nothing was stopping him this time, not now when this ass was offered up to him, and his prisoner's pained grunts were slowly turning to moans of pleasure. Each time Junmyeon's whines grew louder, more higher pitched.  
  
Sehun waited until he made almost no sound at all, and then he pulled out. The other gasped, hole clenching around nothing but the oils that slicked him up.  
  
“On the bed, now,” Sehun ordered.  
  
Junmyeon crawled heavily onto his feet, finally kicking out of his trousers and he poured himself across the bedcover. Sehun crawled after him, cock bouncing heavily against his navel, but just as he reached Junmyeon, his captive turned the tables on him. Sehun flopped heavily onto his back with a whoosh of air and not a tiny amount of panic. That should have been Junmyeon his back, ready to show all. Instead it was Sehun and Junmyeon was the one crawling on top of him.  
  
“I hope... you don't... mind...” Junmyeon panted, grabbing onto Sehun's cock as he shifted himself forward.  
  
Sehun's eyes almost rolled into the back of his head when he saw next was Junmyeon meant to do. The man hovered over Sehun's length, held it to his entrance and Sehun almost screamed when he sunk heavily onto his cock. His back left the bed, arms reaching for Junmyeon's hips, but the man rode him so hard he could almost not keep up, could not even help. He settled for focusing, each time Junmyeon came down he thrust up and it took several tries before he got the timing just right and when he did... all that exertion proved worth it when Junmyeon keened super loudly and almost fell forward onto Sehun's chest.  
  
“Fuck,” he cried once, desperately.  
  
Junmyeon held himself up by his hands, now anchored behind him on Sehun's thighs and his cock bobbed violently in the air. Sehun yearned to touch it, but the pressure in his gut was already building up and Junmyeon looked near done.  
  
“K-Keep going...” Sehun stuttered.  
  
Each of them writhed on the bed. Sehun pushed onto one elbow and thrust doubly hard into the heat enveloping him. With his other hand he took hold of Junmyeon's pulsing muscle, squeezed once at the base before sliding upwards, and it took just one or two swipes along the head before Junmyeon quit moving, grimaced and arched, and came into Sehun's hand.  
  
He made no noise, but his eyes clamped shut and his mouth fell open, and it was far cry from the day they first met and Junmyeon screamed and cursed. Sehun liked this visage better, so much so that he came too on the next thrust. Junmyeon toppled onto him finally, hand clenching around Sehun's sweat damped shoulders and his head fell into his neck while Sehun pumped into his hole, roughly and sporadically, then shallowly. Then lazily.  
  
They panted into each other, sharing the air space more intimately than a kiss. Cum slipped out of Junmyeon's hole when Sehun lifted him up slightly, pulling out. Then he relaxed on his back while the other man flipped slightly onto his side. They were sticky, messy, filthy, and totally satiated.  
  
“Fuck, that was great...” Sehun barely intoned.  
  
Junmyeon made no sound at first. Then he panted once, and huffed. “Yeah... what a shame I'll be gone tomorrow, huh?”  
  
Something squeezed in his gut. It was a nasty tone, one that made Sehun suddenly sick in discomfort. “Yeah, too bad,” he agreed even though he wished this to be different.  
  
Junmyeon was lying dangerously close to the side of the bed, and he laughed when he said, “Well, at least you were a good fuck.”  
  
“Happy to oblige,” Sehun replied thickly. He was getting the sudden urge to kick him off.  
  
“Yeah, not bad at all.”  
  
Sehun almost hissed. The compliment sounded almost like an insult. And then Junmyeon continued.  
  
“So? How about me? Was it good? To your liking? Have I earned my release?”  
  
Maybe he meant it as a joke, or maybe he was serious, but Sehun couldn't tell tell the difference, not when Junmyeon was pretending this had been like nothing. He sat up, body aching from its desire to rest, but something inside his head was bulging, raging to come out.  
  
“You're release?” he echoed angrily. “You think you earned your release by sitting on my cock. Is that it? Which release are you talking about? This one?” He grabbed Junmyeon's softening cock, relishing in the man's clenched whimpers. “Or the one tomorrow...?”  
  
With his eyes, he dared Junmyeon not to say it. He even let go of his slick, wet organ and stared him down.  
  
Junmyeon swallowed, smiled, and met his eyes. “Tomorrow's, of course,” he said thickly, eyes twinkling. “Just making sure you felt enough appeased to let me go, as you said.”  
  
It had to be a joke. It absolutely had to be, but everything in Sehun's mind rejected the possibility that he could be played for an idiot, especially after sex. It took only seconds for the fumes to turn into a full rage. “You did this for... for...” He couldn't even say the rest, he was so revolted by the assumption Junmyeon had let himself be fucked to earn his freedom. Sex for release, and for Tao's release too probably. What wouldn't this man do to get Tao and himself away?  
  
And to think he'd actually been fond of the man, of his body  _and_  for his glib tongue...  
  
Sehun reacted before fully thinking it through. And maybe it was just a physical reaction to the emotional rejection, but he flung out his arm to get away from the man and it landed heavily across Junmyeon's chest. It knocked him off the bed and Junmyeon fell to the floor with a loud thud, crying out. And even though it was kind of an accident, Sehun felt halfway vindicated. Junmyeon lay on the ground in a heap and Sehun towered over him once more.  
  
“Congratulations. I'll keep my word,” he spat, while Junmyeon sat up, nursing a wounded elbow. Sehun scooted quickly off the bed and retrieved his clothes. He started dressing, not minding how filthy he felt. Junmyeon, however, did not.  
  
“What are you waiting for?” Sehun continued to scowl. “You've done yourself proud. Now get out of my room.”  
  
He wasn't sure if that was disappointment he read off Junmyeon's face, or confirmation. He didn't look for very long, and moments later a halfway dressed Junmyeon was walking out of his room and Sehun let his face fall for the first time.  _That fucking man._  
  
  
  
  
  
  
It was Chanyeol and Kyungsoo who came for him the next day. The ship weighed anchor in a concealed cove. They would take a rowboat to shore and then begin a half-day march across land, a peninsula really, to the other side where the larger port city lay. Junmyeon only knew this because of Yixing, who had taken some time to press a salve into his elbow and part of his thigh where he'd been injured falling off the bed. Other parts of him were sore, but it was manageable. At least enough so that he didn't want to mention it. Perhaps Yixing knew though, and that was why he gave him an herb drink to last the trek.

“Luhan's rowing us out,” Chanyeol announced on deck. Beside him Kyungsoo sat on a barrel cleaning his daggers and Junmyeon really wished it was somebody else going with him.

“Where's Tao?” asked Minseok, who was also standing around.

“We're here,” said Jongdae. Tao followed him up the hatch and immediately sought out Junmyeon's eyes. The captain was nowhere to be seen. Jongin and Yixing hovered nearby.

“Somebody, tell me the verdict then,” said Chanyeol looking at Tao.

Junmyeon pitied the boy almost immediately. He stood awfully close next to Jongdae, who was also looking grim, but when he looked at Junmyeon, Tao's face aligned with a sense of loyalty and duty.

“I'm going,” he said firmly, and Jongdae's head dropped.

“Fine, that's great. Let's go.”

“Without the captain here?” Minseok wanted to verify.

“What does the captain need to be here for?” Chanyeol almost barked at him.

_To say goodbye,_  Junmyeon wanted to say.  _So I can say sorry?_  He also wanted to say.

The trip to the shore was a pitiful affair. Tao looked more forlorn with every stroke and by the time they reached land he looked about to die.

“Wait,” Junmyeon said, when they were all out and Luhan was beginning to turn the boat around.

“What now?” asked Chanyeol, but Junmyeon didn't pay him any mind.

“Tao,” he said, and his deckhand looked up sharply, confused.

“Yes, c-captain?”

Junmyeon bit his lip, wondering if this was really the best thing to do. Tao wasn't a particularly good sailor, but he was hardworking and above all loyal. Junmyeon knew that was the only reason he was here right now. He inhaled deeply, and considered one last time.

“I'm not your captain anymore, Tao. So don't use that term on me. Go back to the ship. I... know that's where you want to be.” To Tao he would be nicer than to himself.

“What?” Tao gaped at him.

“I'm releasing you from duty. I'll say you died. Go now, and... thank you... for everything.”

There was no time for hugs, for deeper words. Luhan was waiting and Jongdae would be waiting. Meanwhile the rest of them had a ransom drop to make before nightfall, and part of Junmyeon's heart hoped that it would go smoothly for everyone, the pirates included. He had no choice now but to worry about them. Tao would be on board. And Sehun, was also on board.

Junmyeon spared the ship one last glance. He didn't wave to Tao in the boat. If he did, then maybe he would want to call it back. To apologize in person.

  
  
  
  
  
  
Hours passed before Sehun came out of his quarters. His eyes burned and his heart pounded in anger still. But Minseok was at the helm steering the ship in a wide arc around the port city to avoid any possible confrontations. They would slip around the peninsula and sneak into another cove on the direct opposite side. Chanyeol and Kyungsoo would hopefully meet them there with the ransom money. And then they could get on their way with normal business, pirating. Sehun had never felt less like a pirate than when he had a captive on board, and that wasn’t supposed to be the case. Junmyeon shouldn’t make him feel that way. Weak, emotionally weak.

He spotted Jongin on the deck as he made his rounds.

“Captain,” he squeaked out while concealing a smile that was too late hide.

“Jongin,” Sehun acknowledged him with a nod. And then, “What are you smiling about?”

Jongin blushed a little, and then smiled again, shyly this time. “Tao came back.”

“He what?”

“He came back with Luhan. Said Junmyeon told him to return, that he’d tell everyone on land Tao died in the wreck. Jongdae is… very happy right now.”

And so was Jongin, Sehun noticed. He figured they must have become friends while Tao was on board, unlike Sehun and Junmyeon.

“Another laborer is a good thing.” That was all Sehun would say on that topic, and Jongin scampered off, heading to his post on the crow’s nest to keep look out.

Fog shrouded their way when they reached the other side, and Sehun took over the wheel.

“You alright, captain?” asked Minseok before he retired.

Sehun merely grunted. He couldn’t mention to his former first mate that he’d spent most of the morning alternating between staring at the bed where he’d fucked Junmyeon, and avoiding the sight of that particular item of furniture completely.

Maybe Minseok said something to him, but Yixing joined him later. He came quietly and stood by the helm and Sehun was grateful he didn’t ask him anything directly. Instead they conversed about the weather, their supplies; around what time they should expect Chanyeol and Kyungsoo to return. Luhan would want to know how much food to prepare. After a few minutes Yixing slipped something out from his overcoat and laid it on a crate by Sehun’s side.

It was a letter, addressed to him.

He didn’t read it. Not then, not that evening. Not even the next morning, by which time his two members were late returning and everyone started to worry, Sehun in particular. A whole host of scenarios ran through his head starting with Chanyeol and Kyungsoo laying dead somewhere, to them just having to trouble-shoot and revise their plans, to them returning joyously with Junmyeon still by their side.

The letter burned a hole in his mind. He wanted so badly to know what was inside, but he feared what it might say.

He opened it finally on the evening of the next day, when Chanyeol and Kyungsoo finally returned victorious,  _with_  the ransom money, and no Junmyeon (“He was picked up fine. We just ran into some trouble getting away,” Kyungsoo said).

The letter made no impact to their schedule or to their plans. Sehun directed the ship’s work as they’d already decided and his crew obeyed and never questioned anything, as they should. Sehun might be a pirate, they might act like scavengers, and they might occasionally have to kill to do to their jobs and fight for their survival, but he was a good captain, and they knew it.

He wondered what Junmyeon’s men thought of him. If they would accept him back into the navy after losing his ship and half his men drowning, after being taken prisoner by a pirate he was supposed to be chasing.

_‘All things considered, I wish to apologize,’_  Junmyeon had written.

After veering off their escape route and hiding for a day, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo had heard things, mostly about the armada that was set to sail any time now. And somehow they’d picked up gossip about which direction the merchant fleet was heading, and where the heaviest traffic on the sea would be, and so Sehun avoided those areas and made long detours in other directions.

_‘I didn’t quite mean all the things I said to you, after.’_

They took over a small vessel carrying food stocks and furs to one of the islands. It had fallen behind the fleet and so was an easy takeover. His men got to do some fighting, and maybe one person on the other ship died of his injuries and Tao was restless for a week afterwards. Then he hardened up and learned to accept life on the high seas. The crew kept half of the supplies and sold the rest at the next safe harbor.

_‘It was an interesting experience, staying on your boat.’_

For a while Sehun was gloomy. He knew it, his crew knew it. Even Tao dared to look at him funny, although Sehun quickly asked him to stop, and the newest pirate, cowed by the threat, quit staring.

_‘I kind of liked it. And you.’_

Around wintertime the seas grew rough, and they spent several months in a rough port city that was friendly, or merely indifferent, to those on the other side of the law. That is until there was a nice break in the weather, and Sehun rounded up his grumbling crew for one last cruise in the last week of the year.

_‘By the way, if you wondered how I knew the people at El Dorado, it’s because I always stop in there when I’m in port.’_

Minseok hotly protested going back there, and Chanyeol stood around confused and indignant, but Sehun was firm about it.

_‘I doubt I’ll be reassigned until the spring. They won’t just give me a new ship right away. I’ll probably spend my holidays there on the coast. Stop in for a drink at New Years.’_

“Won’t you at least tell us why we’re going back there?” Chanyeol complained until Yixing drew him aside and distracted him. Sehun managed to pick up a load of stolen goods for delivery and that appeased his crew a little better.

In a matter of days, they would probably know why. But how could Sehun tell them in advance that he wanted to be there, on New Year’s Eve, on the slim possibility that Junmyeon might be there too? He’d have to hide Kyungsoo away, or else he’d scare the hell out of Yifan and become barred from entering. Probably they’d be accosted by Baekhyun with more of his slimy gossip and tales, but Sehun would live.

_‘Maybe you’ll be there too?’_

Oh, Sehun would be there.

 

 

 

**End.**


End file.
